Teaching overview

Learning points

  • A fully grown male polar bear can weigh as much as eight human adults.
  • Polar bears use their paws to spread their weight evenly over the surface of the ice, which helps them travel across the ice without falling through it.
  • Polar bears use their powerful limbs to swim for long periods of time and cover great distances.

Curriculum keywords

  • Animals
  • Habitats
  • Adaptation

Spark a discussion

  • How are polar bears able to move across ice without falling through it?
  • What other features allow polar bears to survive in their natural habitat?
  • Imagine you're designing a vehicle that can travel over ice without falling through it. What would your design be like?

Twig Science: A Complete Pre-K–8 Program for the NGSS

Immersive Investigations with High-Quality Multimedia

  • Investigating, designing, building, and understanding phenomena
  • Hands-on, digital, video, and print investigations
  • Synchronous/asynchronous distance learning